[Image: Flickr]
Fifteen years after its release, just about the only people still buying the Microsoft Kinect are ghost hunters who claim the motion-sensing camera is the perfect tool for paranormal investigations.
The body-tracking camera, which was discontinued in 2017, is now enjoying a spirited afterlife outside of video games by helping paranormal investigators, like the Ghost Adventures team, in their attempts at documenting the afterlife.
The Kinect’s ability to convert the data from its body-tracking sensors into an on-screen skeletal dummy delights these investigators, who allege the figures it shows in empty spaces are, in fact, spirits of the departed.
As per The Verge, the Kinect has become particularly popular with ghost-hunting YouTubers in their never-ending quest to prove there are spooks all around us.
“The Kinect’s popularity as a depth camera for ghost hunting stems from its ability to detect depth and create stick-figure representations of humanoid shapes, making it easier to identify potential human-like forms, even if faint or translucent,” says Sam Ashford, founder of ghost-hunting equipment store SpiritShack.
The secret to spotting ghosts comes from the first-generation Kinect’s structured light system. By projecting a grid of infrared dots into an environment – even in darkness – and reading the resulting pattern, the Kinect can detect ‘deformations in the projection’ and, through a machine-learning algorithm, deduce human limbs within those deformations.
The Kinect then converts that data into a visual representation of a stick figure, which, in its previous life, made it possible to play games like Dance Central and Kinect Sports. Ghost hunters have, however, rebranded the Kinect as a “structured light sensor” (SLS) camera.
“The user will direct the camera to a certain point of the room where they believe activity to be present,” says Andy Bailey, founder of a gear shop for ghost hunters. “The subject area will be absent of human beings. However, the camera will often calculate and display the presence of a skeletal image.”
Bailey does urge caution, telling would-be ghost hunters that the cameras are best paired with “other equipment to provide an additional layer of supporting evidence.”
So, did Microsoft, while trying to break Nintendo Wii’s stranglehold on the motion-gaming market, accidentally create a tool that allows us to glimpse the afterlife? Sadly, the tech bros say no.
The Kinect is designed to ‘see’ human figures wherever it is pointed, whether the ‘presence’ is a real human, a lamp, or just a puff of dust.
Jon Wood, a science performer who has a show devoted to examining ghost-hunting equipment, says the Kinect does much the same as our brain “trying to make sense of the randomness”, except it cannot overrule its hunches, and therefore even a shadow would appear to look like a solid figure.
“We may recognise the face of Jesus in a piece of toast or an elephant in a rock formation.”
This doesn’t deter ghost-hunters, though. Setting up a Kinect in a room with infra-red lights everywhere and numerous torches in shaky hands flashing about is guaranteed to give it something to misinterperet as a ghost – and even the flimsiest ‘evidence’ of life after death gets clicks.
“If a person pays good money to enjoy a ghost hunt, what are they after?” Wood asks. “They prime themselves for a ‘spooky encounter’ and open up to the suggestion of anything being ‘evidence of a ghost’ — they want to find a ghost, so they make sure they do.”
Rather disappointing, isn’t it? Despite all the technology in the world, it would seem the only real way to see a ghost is by being born with die helm.
[Source: Verge]